


Summerpornathon Entries 2011

by lady_ragnell



Series: Pornathon 2011 [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: summerpornathon, Explicit Sexual Content, Multi, Plot What Plot, Team Gluttony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-15
Updated: 2012-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-29 15:06:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Entries for the 7 weeks of the summerpornathon challenge on LJ, with various pairings (everything will be in the chapter summaries/notes).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Week One: Sex Toys

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings and further notes at the beginnings of chapters.
> 
> For this first one: Gwaine/Vivian, pegging, canon era.
> 
> Written because I got annoyed at the end of 2x10 on a rewatch.

Gwaine pants into feather pillows as he’s opened up--slow, but with no quarter given, and shit, he likes that, he _loves_ that--

“Almost there,” she croons, hair tickling his back as she fills him. “Shhh.”  
*  
If given eternity to ponder, Gwaine doesn’t think he could figure out how it happened, but he knows it began with Merlin and Arthur exchanging a smirk. Far too many things do.

“A diplomatic visit,” Arthur explained. “Since we’re both newly crowned, and we want to retain the alliance. I can’t go, obviously, so I’ll send one of my most trusted knights in my place.”

Gwaine should really learn to mistrust Arthur’s compliments.  
*  
“How does it feel?”

Vivian is breathless, giddy with how clever she is, and Gwaine grins through his discomfort. The wood, slicked and polished enough not to catch, doesn’t yield, but it’s _good_. “Why don’t you fuck me and see?”

He can feel her wriggling, trying for leverage against his height, and it moves the wooden cock a little bit deeper. He gasps into the feeling, and she laughs. “I’ll be the best you’ve ever had.”

He knows.  
*  
Gwaine discovered about an hour into his visit, when Queen Vivian asked breathlessly after his liege, that she’s in love with Arthur, in a soppy sort of way that made him cringe then and makes him sick now. He spent a week answering her queries and listening to her sigh over the answers, no matter what he said. Then he wrote to Merlin and asked if she had some sort of mental affliction, because nobody thinks that Arthur’s habit of throwing things when upset is charming.

 _There might be a bit of a love spell,_ Merlin wrote back. _But she isn’t in love so we can’t fix it._

And that explained more than it didn’t.  
*  
Gwaine spreads his knees further so he can sink lower on the bedspread, lets her fuck into him at the angle that hits his sweet spot. He makes a point of arching and moaning whenever she finds it--Vivian likes a bit of a show--so she keeps hitting it, snapping her hips in a parody of what he usually does. “That’s perfect, princess,” he praises. She likes that too.

“I wish I could feel you.” She stops bracing both hands on his hips, moving one to tease into her slit, which is still wet from his mouth. “Does it feel good, like when you fuck me?”

“Oh, yes,” he manages, panting with every thrust. Gods, he doesn’t know who gave her this idea, but he’s going to have to figure it out and thank them.  
*  
He can’t quite remember how the arrangement started. He thinks there was mead involved, and a bet, and then he was tonguing at her, holding her hips off the bed to taste. It’s been months now, his diplomatic visit extending beyond normal, and they haven’t stopped.

Vivian is ravenous and relentless and inventive, a match for everything he’s learned in his travels and more, for all Gwaine was the first one to touch her. She may have been brought up a pampered princess with every man run off by her father, but she isn’t one now.  
*  
Gwaine reaches back when her high moans prove she’s starting to pay more attention to her fingers in her cunt than to him, and gets his hand on her hip to force her into a better angle and rhythm. “Come on,” he goads. “Harder.”

Like always, Vivian takes the challenge and runs with it. She’s no knight, trained to strength and ruthlessness, but she snaps into him until her hips and the straps holding on the cock dig at him with each thrust. “Better?”

“Better,” he affirms, cock leaking, ready to burst but wanting to see how much more she can give.  
*  
Vivian won’t kiss him. Months, now, and she won’t, even though he wants to teach her that just like he’s taught her everything else. She says she’s saving it for “my lord Arthur” whenever he tries.

But Gwaine still wants it. Wants to see if she kisses like she fucks, like she takes no prisoners.  
*  
He comes with a shout just after she does, the wooden cock jolting as she trembles, and Vivian pulls her hips back almost immediately, leaving him stinging and empty. Gwaine rolls to his side, panting and sore from a long fuck. It’s been a long time.

She’s petting him, he realizes when he gets his bearings back. Petting him and soothing him like he’s a ravished maid, peppering pleased little kisses on his brow and hair. “I like that,” she whispers, smile devilish, and he grins back. “We should do it again.”

“We should, but not tonight. I have to ride tomorrow.” A lock of her hair tickles his nose, and she’s still smiling fondly down at him.

Gwaine takes his chances and cuffs an arm around her neck to draw her down for a kiss.

 _And then itachitachi asked for a happy ending:_

Vivian doesn't let him kiss her that time. She twists like an eel to put her hand over his mouth and waits until he stops pressing against it to stroke her hand through his hair again.

She doesn't let him the next time. Or the time after that. Or a dozen times after, as autumn goes on and Gwaine should really think about getting back to Camelot before the snow sets in. It's not the only reason he should go, either. It's starting to sting that every time he mentions sending a report back, Vivian instantly tells him to pass on her fondest greetings to Arthur, and he shouldn't allow it to sting. It's not the first time he's been second in someone's affections.

So after Samhain and a letter from Merlin that sounds worried despite his obvious attempts at breezy cheer, Gwaine comes before the Queen while she's holding audiences and says he thanks Vivian for her hospitality, but he must return home. He expects some mild disappointment, followed by orders to tell his king she wants him to visit instead of one of his knights the next time.

Instead, she goes pale and dismisses everyone before descending from her throne to stand in front of Gwaine. "I did not give you permission to go," says Vivian, squaring her shoulders. Her lips are trembling.

"Arthur can't get by without me, I'm afraid." He shrugs and hopes that mention of her love will stop the rest of the conversation.

"You can stay. No one attacks in the winter, so you can stay. I'll--" She looks up at him through her lashes, playing the princess instead of the queen. "I'll let you kiss me if you stay."

Gwaine winces. "Don't do me any favours, your Majesty," he says, and walks out before he gives in to temptation.

Vivian comes to his bed that night instead of summoning him to hers and fucks him again with desperate, sharp thrusts. Gwaine bites down on his wrist and doesn't try to kiss her afterwards, even though her soothing little pecks travel across his jaw and chin. "Who will do that, if you go?" she asks while she arranges herself around him to sleep.

"Why do you want me to stay?" he asks in return, and he's glad when she doesn't answer.

Gwaine spends a week after that finishing the rest of his business, and avoids Vivian's room when he can. She catches him the dawn of the morning he plans to leave, pushing him into a curtained alcove when he walks down a hall with a sack on his back. "Sometimes I forget about him when I'm with you," she says conversationally, and she's staring at his mouth.

The compliment is as effective as a knife in the chest. He pushes her off. "I won't stay for that."

"Then you don't _understand_." She puts her hands on her hips. "I know what people say about me, as a Queen alone at my age, especially when they hear me speak of Arthur. But I am not a fool, Sir Gwaine. My love is spurned, my love married to another, but I cannot _stop_. I guessed what that means long ago, and if I cannot break the spell, can't you at least help me forget about it for a while?"

Gwaine thinks of a months-ago letter, Merlin's equivalent of a helpless shrug as he said that Vivian isn't truly in love with anyone so the spell can't be broken. He thinks about being able to make her forget, and how she giggles every time she tries something he doesn't expect her to know. He thinks about his instinct to kiss her, to claim her, and has an idea. "Do you trust me?"

She rolls her eyes. "Obviously, but that's not the--"

Gwaine kisses her, and she lets out a startled noise and tries to pull away. He's just about to give it up as a useless hope and a foolish idea when she suddenly freezes and then starts kissing him back with all the fire and passion she rides him with. She objects, loudly, when he pulls away at last to grin at her. "Any particular opinions on King Arthur, my lady?"

Vivian looks at him as if he's completely mad. "You're asking about your idiot master when you could be kissing me?"

"Answer enough for me," he says, and kisses her again.


	2. Week Two: Kink Grab-Bag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur and a stranger on the dance floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "exhibitionism" kink in the grab-bag, and contains a great deal of it.

It’s Saturday night and the club floor is sweltering, the smell of sweat and perfume and leather reminding the crowd why they’re there, to shag or be shagged. Night like this, when he lost his friends five minutes after coming through the door, it’s hard to keep a partner for long. But Arthur knows what he wants, and tonight, what he wants is the man dancing in front of him now, whose arse slots perfectly against Arthur’s hips.

Anyone could be forgiven for thinking he’s some sort of club twink, with his skinny frame and tight jeans, not to mention the smudge of glitter on his cheek, but Arthur knows better, now. When he feels under his shirt, there’s muscle, and there’s strength in the arm hooked back around Arthur’s neck.

As if he can sense Arthur’s thoughts, the man--boy, really--twists to catch his eye, and it’s not the coy, through-the-lashes look most people would expect. It’s a challenge. With the glitter highlighting one of his incredible cheekbones and the twist to his mouth, he looks like something fey and foreign.

Arthur grinds his hips against the boy’s arse, wonders if it’s as tight and sweet inside as it feels like it must be. The boy laughs and throws his head back onto Arthur’s shoulder, and Arthur takes his mouth. The angle’s wrong, makes the kiss slick and sloppy, more tongue than lips. It makes the laugh turn into an inhale.

It’s too loud to bother speaking. They don’t need to. _More, more, I can take everything you have to give,_ the boy says with his eyes and his tongue and his teeth scraping against Arthur’s night-rough chin.

 _I’ll give it to you, darling,_ Arthur promises just as silently, and tips the boy’s head back to bite at his neck as he sweeps a hand up under his shirt and then down inside the waistband of his jeans.

The boy pulls an inch or two away, leaving Arthur instantly cold and wanting, and jerks his head in the direction of the men’s toilets. Arthur just smiles and pulls them back together. Gives the boy’s erection one deliberate rub through his jeans.

He feels it when the boy realizes what he wants, what he’s made of the challenge. The boy shivers into him, melting into pliancy even as his eyes close and his breath goes high, almost panicky. Arthur desperately wants to talk, to remind him that people will see, will know, but it’s not worth it through the pounding of the bass. “Open your eyes,” he hisses instead, right into the boy’s ear. He obeys.

Arthur ruts in time to the beat, hands teasing and eyes never leaving the boy’s. Someone’s got to have realized what’s going on by now, but he doesn’t care. He just watches the boy’s eyes flutter open and shut, sees his gaze dart around and his breathing quicken every time he sees someone watching them. Always, always, though, his eyes return to Arthur, drinking him up.

 _Checking to make sure I’m still with him, the idiot,_ thinks Arthur, fond, and kisses him again for reassurance. The boy arches into the hand teasing over his cock, forces it to move harder, faster. Arthur groans low. Everyone can see, but he doesn’t care to look away from the boy’s eyes long enough to see their reactions.

The impossible gold of the boy’s eyes when they come back to his shocks Arthur’s orgasm from him. A word tries to fight its way, unbidden, from his mouth. “Mer--Merl--”

The boy comes, staggering and panting, falling out of rhythm, and then starts looking around, eyes wide. Arthur doesn’t bother, just spins him around by the shoulders to see his bruised lips and glassy eyes, the wet messy patch at the front of his jeans. He’s shaking. Arthur might be too.

“Your number,” Arthur demands, and when he gets no response, he fumbles for his phone and holds it out, palm up.

In answer, the boy just shakes his head and closes Arthur’s hand around the phone, then kisses him one last time, tongue deep and surprisingly expert after the sloppiness of earlier, turns, and disappears into the crowd.

Arthur stares for too long before moving to put his phone away, and freezes when he feels the crackle of paper. He didn’t see the boy slip the note to him, and his phone drops unheeded to the floor as he reads it.

 _I’ll see you when you remember._


	3. Week Three: Alternate Universe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur/Merlin: Arthur never thought he would be one of the sad people who went to VR offices for sex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ending changed from the original post at the pornathon, but I like it much better this way.

Arthur never thought he would be one of the sad people who went to VR offices for sex. It’s for people who are too unattractive, people who can’t pull in reality, people who would rather have a holo than a real lover. Arthur swore the first time he realized his father was slipping away into virtual reality and a hologram of his mother that he wouldn’t follow in his footsteps.

But here he is, in a waiting room dressed in dark mahogany, head in his hands and waiting for a technician to call his name. Because he’s tired and he’s lonely and his sister had said “it’s at least a way of moving on” and handed him a card. “Arthur Pendragon,” the blonde technician calls from the door, and he gets up. No one else bothers looking to see who he is. “We have something to your specifications,” she says, and leads him down the hall and through a door, into a room that’s nothing more than a bed and a VR headset. “I assume you know how this works.”

“I know.” He makes himself comfortable on the bed and lets her adjust the headset, and then he slips away.  
*  
“You’re home.”

Arms wrap around his neck, and Arthur stands still, disoriented. A second later, his partner pulls back--male, Arthur notes, a few years younger, dark-haired and big-eared and so thin it’s a wonder Arthur couldn’t feel ribs in the embrace. “I am,” he says, since apparently he is.

The man’s brows knit, and he rubs his thumb across Arthur’s mouth. “Something’s wrong. C’mere, come to the bedroom, sweet, we’ll get you sorted out.”

Arthur lets himself be led through a flat he doesn’t recognize, designed mostly in his taste but with a few jarring elements: a lamp he would never choose, a mess of groceries he doesn’t know how to cook with on the counter. The bedroom is dark and quiet, and he goes to the bed immediately. “Coming?”

“Eager.” His partner sits down next to him and starts unbuttoning his shirt. Arthur pushes him gently away and takes it off himself, over his head, and then the rest of his clothes while the other man shucks off jeans and trainers and t-shirt. “I’ve been thinking about you all day. Wanting you to fuck me. I got myself ready earlier, even.”

That’s not quite what he wants. “I’ll just make sure you did it right. Sweetheart,” he adds, since apparently they talk like that.

The man tsks. “Checking my work?” He leans over Arthur to fumble for a bottle of lube. “Go on, then.”

Arthur drips lube all over his fingers and pulls the man over his lap; he’s already loose, the technician probably assuming Arthur wouldn’t care to do it, but Arthur fucks him with his fingers, stretching and crooking in the tight heat. Waits until he’s mewling into the bedsheets, almost sobbing with overstimulation. “Now you’re ready.”

“Yes, yes, _please_.”

“Hush, sweetheart.” The man is thrusting mindlessly into Arthur’s lap, so Arthur has to rearrange them, flip the man over on his back so he’s looking up flushed and happy. “I’ve got you,” he promises, and pushes in.

The man arches from the bed, beautiful and responsive, and Arthur fucks him, and fucks him, until they’re both breathless and would be aching if any of it were real, and Arthur doesn’t think of Gwen once. He curls up next to the man afterwards, with what remains of his hour, feeling unexpectedly and terrifyingly tender, brushing sweat-soaked hair from his forehead. The man just stares at him, expression impossible to read. “Almost done,” he says, pensive, when Arthur’s counting down his last five minutes.

“Almost.”  
*  
Arthur comes out of VR shaky, but not the same way he was before. Morgana was right, maybe, that it might get his mind off Gwen, but he won’t do it again. Too easy to become his father. He thanks the technician, who has enough pity not to ask him how it was, and leaves after the five minutes of reorientation time.

In the hall, he runs into another client leaving at the same time. Skinny, dark-haired--impossible. But Arthur has to try. “Sweetheart,” he calls, feeling foolish, wishing for a name. Two people in the same VR isn’t common, but--

The man pauses, and Arthur waits to see if he’ll turn.


	4. Week Four: First and Last Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur/Leon: Arthur gets his first battle wound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** Arthur is about sixteen in this, and Leon a few years older, but they are consenting.

“Your highness?”

The prince looks up from where he’s rubbing at his thigh on the bedroll in his tent, then looks down again, scowling. “Leon.”

“May I come in?” He feels helpless in the face of whatever Arthur’s feeling, on his first bandit campaign and wounded in a skirmish for a silly mistake and a gap in his armour, but the king took him aside before they left Camelot and told Leon to watch over the prince, since they were closest in age, and Leon figures that must mean after battle as well as during it.

“I don’t suppose I can stop you.”

That’s as much invitation as he’s going to get, so he walks in and sits next to Arthur. “The first time I was wounded in battle,” Leon says after too much silence, “I was your age. It was supposed to be a training exercise in scouting, and we ran across a band of mercenaries. Mercian. I took a sword to the arm because I was too slow.”

“You weren’t knighted then.”

“And neither are you.” Arthur just looks at him and doesn’t have to say _yes, but I’m the prince._ Leon sighs. “One of the older boys, about two weeks from his knighting, he said it meant I was a man, then. That the first time you’re wounded makes you part of the brotherhood of warriors.”

“It was just because I was careless.”

“So you’ll do better next time.” Leon nudges him with a shoulder, careful of how sore he must be. “The same knight also told me that if you survive a battle, that’s something. That you should be glad to be alive, because there are men out there who aren’t, if you did your job right.” He knows at least one man fell by Arthur’s hand, and he thinks that’s Arthur’s first kill, though he won’t ask. The king will be proud, at least.

Arthur straightens his shoulders and does a good job of hiding his wince. “Glad to be alive.” He sounds like he’s trying it out, and then he shifts to look at Leon sidelong, and there’s something in his eyes that’s been growing over the last two weeks on the road, and in jousting practice before that, before Leon was knighted, combined with the reckless spark that comes after a battle, the same one that has Leon fidgeting where he sits.

This is common enough, on long campaigns, and Arthur is a handsome boy growing into a king. Only a fool would would turn him away. Leon turns to look him properly in the face. “There’s something else that knight taught me.”

Arthur is young, but he isn’t stupid. He goes eagerly to his back and looks up at Leon. “Show me.”

Leon doesn’t bother asking if he’s done this before; it would be an affront to both of their pride. Instead, he bends over his prince and unlaces his breeches, palms his thickening cock. He won’t do anything much--for all Arthur is pretending his wound isn’t bad, Leon saw the swathes of bandage being wrapped around his bleeding leg, and he won’t risk straining it--but he can at least give them release. Arthur bites down on his own fist as Leon starts to stroke him, slow and gentle, then stops and reaches out to tug at Leon’s collar until he obediently goes down on his side on the bedroll.

Arthur’s hands are inexpert at the laces of Leon’s breeches, and the slack-jawed pleasure on his face is enough sign that nobody’s had him before. Leon helps him, moves his hand to the angle that will feel best, and shows him the way of it, slow and easy. Arthur is sixteen and jittery with adrenaline, and it doesn’t take long for him to spill over Leon’s hand, face red with embarrassment.

Instead of stopping, as Leon had half-expected, Arthur rolls to his side, gritting his teeth against the pain, and works Leon until he spends as well, arching into the grip. They stay there a while, panting and grinning. “Which knight was it, who taught you that?” Arthur asks eventually.

Two years ago, Arthur was just starting to train with the other prospective knights. He wouldn’t remember any particular boy, or a routine bandit patrol that went wrong. Leon shrugs and rolls to his back. “It doesn’t matter. We all learn it, and we all pass it on someday.”


	5. Week Five: Kink Meme Fills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur/Merlin/Morgana: Written for [this prompt](http://kinkme-merlin.livejournal.com/12301.html?thread=10284045#t10284045) at kinkme_merlin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written in an AU that ignores the 3x05 reveal.

Morgana tells him stories, seated in the middle of her enormous bed like a queen, when they’re children and she’s visiting with her father. Fairy tales he’s never heard, told in whispers because they’re about magic.

“There was a boy, with big ears and a bigger smile, and he saved a prince’s life.”

Arthur hangs on her every word until he falls asleep, curled up at her feet.

*

When Morgana’s father dies and she comes to the palace, she keeps telling the stories. It’s the only thing that makes her smile, so Arthur doesn’t stop her even though he knows it’s wrong for her to admire a warlock, to believe one can be good. He lets her take the game farther even though it’s childish, and brings the boy with big ears along in their adventures.

He’s a silent presence, after that, not really there but no less real for it.

*

“There was a boy,” Morgana says when Arthur is sixteen and raging with winter fever. It’s been a year since she last told him a story. “The most powerful warlock to ever live, and he loved a king even though he was a prat, and a seer even though she hurt him.”

Then she kisses him.

Arthur never asks if she’s the seer. He already knows.

*

Even as their kisses turn into more, even as Morgana filches a potion from Gaius and lets Arthur bed her, they don’t always get along. They argue more fiercely, in some ways, than they did before, taking it out in nips and scratches and ripped bedding.

Now, though, Morgana will sigh afterwards, sit up, and begin a story. “There was a boy, a simple country boy, who saw value in people beyond their rank, because he had more power in him than a hundred kings.”

And when they go to sleep, it’s with the ghost of someone else there, someone who would tease them into a better mood and tangle together with them.

*

“You’ve had your fun, my friend,” says the stranger, and Arthur knows who it is before he sees the ears.

He turns and stares, knowing his friends are waiting for him to take the boy down a peg, and all Arthur can think is _he’s here, he’s real_. The impudence doesn’t matter.

*

Morgana comes to Arthur’s room the night Merlin first saves his life, still wearing the dress she probably put on to tease him, before she knew who had come. Or maybe she knew, and wanted to tease Merlin as well.

(If he were anyone else Arthur would have him thrown in the stocks for staring. But he’s the good warlock from the stories he’s heard for most of his life, and Arthur can’t bring himself to object.)

She puts Arthur on his back, skirts hitched up around her waist, and rides him, face pressed to his shoulder. “He’s here,” she half-sobs after they’ve both come. “He’s finally here.”

*

Arthur has no idea how to act around Merlin. Merlin is his servant, and Arthur is a stranger to him, but he’s also Arthur’s childhood playmate, a story that put him to sleep. Merlin is just as he imagined, even though he doesn’t trust Arthur, and he doesn’t know what to do.

Morgana, unconcerned with that, flirts with him constantly, showering Merlin with little touches and smiles whenever their paths cross. She looks at Arthur every time. He always smiles back, and Merlin always just looks between them, not ready to trust them.

*

“There was a boy,” Morgana starts in bed one night after Merlin saves Arthur’s life _again_ , then stops.

Arthur continues. “He took poison for his prince even though the prince didn’t deserve it …”

Morgana curls against his chest to listen.

*

In the end, Morgana arranges it, Arthur too worried that if it comes from him, Merlin will think it a joke, or worse, an order. She comes to Arthur’s room late one night and sets about kissing him. Merlin arrives minutes later, banging the door open without knocking. “It’s late, you--oh! I’ll leave!”

Morgana crosses the room to take Merlin’s hand, towing Arthur behind her. “You can. But we’d like you to stay. With us.” She drops her gaze. “Please.”

Merlin stares between them. A smile spreads across his face, so familiar that Arthur has to kiss it.

*

Merlin’s head is thrown back, his face a picture of surprised pleasure. Morgana won’t relinquish his mouth for a second, so Arthur contents himself painting Merlin’s skin with kisses. He goes as gently as he knows how, half-afraid that if he goes rough Merlin will disappear, while Morgana kisses him wild and hard.

“Can he fuck you?” she whispers into Merlin’s mouth when she pulls away for a second, and Merlin whimpers as he nods.

Morgana prepares him while Arthur gets his turn kissing Merlin.

Arthur fucks him as slowly as he can bear, their fingers tangled together inside Morgana.

*

“There was a boy,” Morgana whispers after Merlin has fallen asleep, curled between them, snoring gently.

Arthur reaches over Merlin to take her hand and settles them both on Merlin’s hip. “And a king and a seer, who all loved each other.”

“And together they united the land of Albion …”

Arthur listens to Morgana weave her tale, with Merlin slotted between them like he’s always been there.


	6. Week Six: Happy Endings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nimueh/Ygraine: Nimueh has to give Arthur the sex talk long before she thought she would.

“Where do babies come from?”

Nimueh would choke on her coffee, but really, last week Arthur asked what “cunt” means, she’s a bit past being shocked by his questions at the breakfast table. Instead, she swallows and puts her cup down. “Why do you want to know?”

“You said Hunith had a baby. Where did she get it? Was she hiding it under her clothes? Is that why her belly was so big when she visited?”

Really, sometimes Nimueh could strangle Balinor for knocking Hunith up when Arthur was at a curious age. “Her belly was big because the baby was inside it. She got it …” She’s a doctor, she should be more prepared for this talk. “Um, when a man and woman love each other very much …”

“But you and Mama love each other very much.” Arthur scowls, the same way he does every time he doesn’t understand something.

Now she has to explain sex, divorce, and lesbians all in one fell swoop. Nimueh takes a fortifying gulp of coffee. “Babies come from a mother and a father,” she tries. She’d hoped to have ten years to prepare for this conversation. “From when they do certain things together, and then the mother gets a baby in her belly, and it grows there.”

“Like an alien!” says Arthur, all right in his world again, though she has no idea how that answered his question.

She buries her face in her hands. “Very like an alien, sweetheart.”

Ygraine chooses that moment to sweep in, still in her bathrobe. “You’re giving Nim a headache, darling, what are you talking about now?”

“It’s a secret.” That’s Arthur’s new favourite phrase, and Nim just flaps her hand to say it’s not important, not sure if she wants to laugh or bang her head against the table.

“Right, of course.” Ygraine kisses each of them on the cheek. “Your father will be here in fifteen minutes, Arthur, have you packed?” He nods. “Nim, has he?”

“Everything, even Bear.”

“It’s nothing short of a miracle. Are you excited to be going out to the country?”

Arthur, predictably, spends the next fifteen minutes rhapsodizing about the fact that he gets to go spend time with the “ponies” on his father’s friend’s estate, and that he gets to spend time with Ellie, a girl he’s met a few times before. Nimueh finishes off her coffee and lets Ygraine nod along and interject excitement in the correct places.

Uther arrives precisely on time and collects both his overexcited son and his overstuffed Power Rangers suitcase. Ygraine almost visibly counts to five after shutting the door before pushing Nimueh up against the nearest wall and kissing her. “Alone at last,” she whispers when they pull apart. “You got dressed. Why did you get dressed?”

“Because I hate wearing pyjamas all day. Are we going back to bed?”

“Are you crazy? Arthur’s away for two days and a night, of _course_ we’re going back to bed.” Nimueh laughs as Ygraine drags her across their flat, tripping over Legos and a plastic sword on the way, and obediently pulls of her t-shirt and jeans while Ygraine strips and crawls into the bed.

They kiss for ages, since they’ve got time for it, and Nimueh smooths her hands over every bit of skin she can reach, grabbing Ygraine’s arse and grinding their hips together until Ygraine fights to get a hand between them and slips her finger in, crooks it while her thumb brushes across Nimueh’s clit. Nimueh arches into her and returns the favour even though the angle is awkward, feeling absurdly like a teenage boy but knowing they’ve got time to do it right, for once.

Nimueh comes first, muscles clenching as she bites down on her moan before remembering that Arthur’s not around to ask awkward questions later on. Ygraine’s still laughing at the strangled noise that results when she comes herself. Nimueh rolls to the side, gasping for air and strategizing for the next round.

“What were you and Arthur talking about this morning?” Ygraine asks after a few minutes.

“He wanted to know where babies come from. Aren’t we supposed to have that chat when he’s older? Perhaps thirty?”

Ygraine starts laughing again, and Nimueh forgets about her complicated plans for the next thirty-six hours and pounces on her, deciding that kisses, as always, are a good place to start.


	7. Week Seven: Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elena/Leon: Princess Elena has been enchanted. Leon and the rest of the knights go to rescue her.

The princess of Gawant was enchanted.

(“Again,” Merlin said in tragic tones when the message came. Leon decided not to ask.)

It was common enough to get that sort of announcement, but this messenger had more to add: “The princess will only awake when she is kissed by her true love.” Arthur, Gwen, and Merlin exchanged looks.

“And what does that have to do with Camelot?” Arthur asked.

The messenger shuffled his feet. “Well, our court sorcerer says it’s one of your knights.”

And that was how Leon found himself with Lancelot, Gwaine, Elyan, and Percival, riding off to rescue a princess.

*

Lord Godwin seemed pleased to see them, even though Leon could only imagine how he felt knowing several near-strangers would have to kiss his sleeping daughter. Leon kept Gwaine from talking, which he felt was the biggest favour he could do.

*

Elyan tried first, entering the princess’s bedchamber and coming out a minute later with an unconcerned shrug.

Percival went that evening after dinner, unsuccessfully. Lancelot tried in the morning and looked relieved when he failed.

That left Gwaine and Leon, and Gwaine clapped Leon on the shoulder that afternoon and said “Well, I’ll go in there and sweep the lady off her feet so you can save your virgin lips” before Leon could speak. He spent a bit longer in the room than the other three had, and Leon began to wonder, but he came out and clapped Leon on the shoulder. “Go in there and get her.” Leon tried not to wince.

*

It wasn’t that Leon didn’t want to find love, or that he had anything against Princess Elena. He’d heard good things about her, after everyone was certain that Arthur wouldn’t have to marry her. It was just that kissing a sleeping woman he’d never met seemed unchivalrous.

“Her father approves,” Elyan pointed out.

“Her father asked us to,” Gwaine amended.

Percival grunted.

Lancelot just gave him a look that clearly said _If I had to, you have to_ , and so Leon pushed open the door to Princess Elena’s bedchamber.

*

The princess was snoring.

Leon blinked and went closer. Princess Elena was lovely, certainly, but she was starfished across her bed and snoring like Percival after a night of mead, which wasn’t how he generally imagined princesses. Still, he wanted to try--although Arthur had quite a few knights, chances were Leon wasn’t going to wake her--so he approached, took a breath, leaned over, and kissed her.

For a second, he thought nothing was going to happen, and warred with relief and disappointment. Then, just as he was about to pull back, a rising snore stuttered and stopped, and her lips started moving. Leon started to pull back when an arm wound around his neck.

When she released him, he blinked down at her for several seconds. She yawned. “Not that I mind, but who are you and why were you kissing me?”

“You were enchanted and you needed to be kissed by your--”

Princess Elena grinned and grabbed his hand to pull him down. “Well, that’s okay then.”

*

Elena, it transpired, had very unorthodox views on what a knight and his lady were meant to do when he rescued her from dire peril.

“We really shouldn’t--” he started when the kisses turned deeper and he remembered that there was protocol to follow. “Your father will want to see you well.”

“My father will probably realize you’ve succeeded when you don’t go out,” said Elena, and kissed him again, rolling him on to his back.

Leon had always been taught it was unchivalrous to argue with a lady. Which was how he found himself without his breeches, gripping Elena’s hips as she sank down on top of him. “This isn’t--” he tried.

She beamed at him. “I kept having the most amazing dreams about you.” And she started moving. It soon became clear that she was used to riding horses, not men, but Leon certainly didn’t mind, and by the time she’d finished with him he was too busy wondering how quickly they could arrange a wedding to worry that her father would be upset.

“You’re an odd princess,” he observed eventually. She winced and wriggled off of him, and he caught her before she could go far, feeling guilty at the way he’d phrased it. “I like it.”

Elena smiled, all forgiven. “I think,” she said, “that we are going to live happily ever after.”


End file.
